It seems to me that the principle worry resulting from the abolition of the size limit is that users will not want to download and test several games that are large in size. However, these arguments are often accompanied by another argument that most developers won't even meet 20mb. If this is true, then the first argument is invalid since there won't actually be very many entries that are large. The fear that users will be faced with many large downloads is unfounded. It is more likely that there will be many small entries and only a few ones that are very large, which is not at all unreasonable since the developers will be hosting them.

The focus in this thread should be on the size limit rule. Adding a technical merit category or proposing a funded hosting solution I think are for separate (totally valid!) discussions.

And without actually counting, it really does seem like a strong majority just wants to get rid of the size rule. We can figure out how to ease downloading of many huge entries when and if it actually happens.

Hairball183 Wrote:Could we not just have people who *cannot* make their game smaller request a license to go over the limit?

Finish your game, optimize, and then if it's too big, email Carlos.

It shouldn't be a matter of whether or not the limit is too small, it's that it is there and it is a technical restriction and a limitation on the ideas may come up with.

From its birth, uDevGames has ALWAYS been about creating games for the mac, and giving the mac community source code to these games to further the development and understanding of the mac platform.

As assets grow larger, projects become easier to make, and bandwidth becomes fatter, having a technical limitation such as compressed size limit only hinders the original design and ideas that birthed uDevGames.

aarku Wrote:The focus in this thread should be on the size limit rule. Adding a technical merit category or proposing a funded hosting solution I think are for separate (totally valid!) discussions.

Actually, the technical merit category idea came directly out of a desire to lift the size limit rule, so it's not as off-the-topic as it may appear from the outside. The idea is that the technical merit category helps replace issues some of us feel are covered by a size limit. Just how intertwined size limit and technical merit are (or not) is another debate entirely, which I do not wish to see take place.

My apologizes for getting back late. Between sponsors, other uDevGames tasks, and preparring for my surgery, it's been a hectic week.

I've just read the entire thread and see arguments against, for, and those on the line.

The size limit was a rule from the first year (2001) when the contest started. We did host all entries in those times. The main idea was to have developers focus on gameplay, and make it easier for gamers to get the games due to ISP speeds of the day. Sometimes I have felt in conflict with myself; I want the best games possible, yet I want the lone-wolf be able to continue to be spotlighted. (or should I say, feel like they can compete.) I do admit I don't like to drastically alter the rules of uDevGames -- I prefer a bit of change a year. Based on what I see with uDevGames alumni, I think we continue to offer a great experience and provide an important spring board.

More developers started to mirror their games on their site in 2003-2004. For me, the advantage is that I don't need to be handling files in the middle of the night during that last crazy week. It also helped in 'locking' playables down once the voting period began and development was to cease. The downside is that developers move on, change ISPs, lose their domain, lose their files (he he... you know who you are) etc. So, iDevGames will always need to host one download version of the game. Especially now that we have a real site, where people and sponsors will come to visit, see a cool game from 2004, and want to download it.

The publishing system has a field for main download, mirror download and local download. Local being iDevGames. So in the event the first two get shut down, or disappear for reasons I just mention, we will still have a copy on our server. If more games do get large this year, we perhaps will need to bump up our server package during the contest, or/and, use an outside file hosting service. (Stability of the contest must be our priority.) There does seem to be many of free file hosting services out there these days that offer 1, 2 and some, even 5GB of free space. Not sure if these 'Web 2.0' vault sites will be around for the long term though. I wouldn't mind working with a stable company that can be an official long term solution filer hoster.. similar to PureStatic. RackSpace would be cool. Someone brought up SourceForge. I think that is an interesting idea. I don't have an account, so I confess that I would need to be educated. Ditto for Amazon.

Quote:People pour their heart and soul into an almost great game, don't sleep, strain
their personal relationships, lose, and never return to Mac game development.

Like me with the site.

On topic or off topic, "Valued Members" award or Technical Award is something I like. We do have an Editor's Award. This is a change that I can live with. So if you would like a Technical award, that's fine. Only negative I can think of is that we want to encourage complete games to be entered.. would we want to praise 'tech demos'?

Quote:Any my point was that there doesn't need to be a limit on file size specifically to make sure people download it, because the larger your game is, you should know that there's a possibility people won't download it. The developers themselves can find that balance, it doesn't need to be imposed.

I think of all the comments, this is the one that has made me re-consider the file limit. Well said, and the non-attack is much appreciated. So we shall remove the file size limit this year, and see where it leads us. (Be careful of what you wish for?? lol)

Quote:Carlos has stolen the $10 entry fee to pay for prize shipping because he refuses to tell sponsors that they must ship direct to the winners.

Please let me handle the marketing and angle that I take with sponsors. You do code. I do marketing. And may I say, I've done an excellent job of obtaining some great prizes and press for you all since 2001. Never could I imagine that this crazy concept called uDevGames would have led to such a great community, games, and nice sponsor support. It's all about win-win relationships. On this topic of fees. At the moment, we only have one prize which must be shipped. That could change as I am re-hitting publishers and hardware vendors. Trust me, I do my best to get them to ship items, but the reality is, not every sponsor is comfortable/willing to ship to a winner. Also, keep in mind that money is not stolen so that I can help to bail out US car makers. Money is always used to run the site in one facet or another. So in one way or another, the competing developer continues to benefit even after the contest is over.

Quote:There should definitely be a page full of raw download links so that I can use the DownThemAll Firefox extension.

I agree. the current listing of the games sucks. I plan on improving it. Over the course of the contest I will continue to improve the uDevGames domain.

Carlos Camacho Wrote:On topic or off topic, "Valued Members" award or Technical Award is something I like. We do have an Editor's Award. This is a change that I can live with. So if you would like a Technical award, that's fine. Only negative I can think of is that we want to encourage complete games to be entered.. would we want to praise 'tech demos'?

Yes, I think praising something that turns out to be an exceptionally nice "tech demo" is perfectly acceptable. It could be anything. It might be that the developer overstepped what they could achieve in three months but were left with something really cool to share with the community, but short of a full game. I've seen some absolutely amazing demos in the past and wish I could've peeked at their code. Stuff like that can be just as useful at boosting and inspiring Mac gaming as a complete game. Besides, it isn't the main thrust of the contest and is only one category.

Your sig tells me otherwise, looks to me like you have plenty of resources to host.
A website with 5gb of bandwidth a month is $65 a year, a bottom of the line MacBook Pro is paid off in a year at $166 a month. See what I'm sayin'?

A young man like yourself can certainly apply yourself to a day of snow shoveling and make a years hosting and more.

With Christmas coming up, (or Hannukah or Kwanza or Festivus), I'm sure a little bread is going
to roll your way or some family member could indulge your need.

Oh yeah, and sourceforge is Free.
I've got over a gig an a half hosted there right now.

Carlos needed a little education on that.
Basically works like this, you sign up an account, it gives you different access to projects, such as you can be added as an admin, etc.
You can then also set up a project there under some open source license, with a lot of details...its pretty detailed, then you're off and
running with a nice SVN repository for your team.

Setting up the release items (public downloads) is another step but I kind of went through a month of living hell the day after I did
that last time so totally forget what the process was, it wasn't hard though.

I honestly can't believe Tobi and I did like five years of work over Carracho, iChat, and FTP before we went open source...craziness!

Ah I must'nt forget, SourceForge team people will have to approve your project before it is set up on their servers, might take a day or two.
Think mine was done in 24 hours.

diordna Wrote:I'd rather pay off my student loans, thanks. How I spend my money is my own business.

You made it public business by making a false claim that you could not afford something that is more affordable than your other indulgences and requesting that others help you where you could easily help yourself.

igame3d Wrote:You made it public business by making a false claim that you could not afford something that is more affordable than your other indulgences and requesting that others help you where you could easily help yourself.

[moderator voice] Accusing someone of being foolish with their money is widely perceived as being rude here on earth. Please be respectful to the native inhabitants while visiting. Thank you